Charged mediators in dark matter scattering with nuclei and the strangeness content of nucleons: Strange Brew

TL;DR

This paper explores how bino-like dark matter interacts with nuclei via light squark exchange in the MSSM, highlighting the importance of nucleon strangeness content and experimental sensitivities.

Contribution

It demonstrates that direct detection experiments can probe MSSM models with light squark exchange and emphasizes the role of nucleon strangeness in scattering uncertainties.

Findings

LUX and SuperCDMS are sensitive to these models.

Models show isospin violation not common in MSSM LSP.

Strangeness content significantly affects nuclear scattering predictions.

Abstract

We consider a scenario, within the framework of the MSSM, in which dark matter is bino-like and dark matter-nucleon spin-independent scattering occurs via the exchange of light squarks which exhibit left-right mixing. We show that direct detection experiments such as LUX and SuperCDMS will be sensitive to a wide class of such models through spin-independent scattering. Moreover, these models exhibit properties, such as isospin violation, that are not typically observed for the MSSM LSP if scattering occurs primarily through Higgs exchange. The dominant nuclear physics uncertainty is the quark content of the nucleon, particularly the strangeness content.